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On 16th April 2014 the South Korean passenger ferry MV Sewol sank en route to Jeju Island, taking the lives of 304 people, mostly high school children. As the Korean public watched live pictures of the ship dangerously listed and slowly sinking, authorities responsible for rescue acted with confusion and inertia. An inexplicable announcement through news media that all passengers had been rescued set the tone for ineptitude that has characterised the handling of one of South Korea’s biggest disasters.

The captain and some crew members, mostly untrained temporary contract workers, were found to be criminally negligent. However, no one has been prosecuted for the catastrophic overloading of unsecured cargo that almost certainly caused the disaster or the failure to launch a proper emergency rescue. Two years on, families are still calling for a meaningful inquiry into the disaster. Stories in South Korean press have emerged discrediting Sewol families as greedy and even ‘North Korean sympathisers’. Such distortions and an apparent denial of truth and justice have strong echoes of the Hillsborough stadium disaster in the UK. Continue reading “Sewol Families Visiting Europe – Three Events in London”→

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Two parents of two student-victims with two campaign co-ordinators, are touring Europe in May to increase awareness of the Sewol disaster, to learn from similar disasters that happened in Europe and other victims’ searches for truth. As part of this visit, they will be visiting the UK between 10 and 12 May 2016. Continue reading “Parents of student-vicitims visiting Europe”→